NEW YORK -- ITT Corp. will sell a big piece of its far-flung empire to the U.S. arm of a large German bank for about $4 billion, the companies said in one of the biggest corporate deals announced this year.


The sale of ITT's commercial finance unit, announced Monday, comes a week after the parent of the Sheraton hotel chain arranged to buy Caesar's World Inc. for $1.7 billion in a major bid to boost its presence in gambling and entertainment.


ITT is one of the most diversified companies in the United States, with operations that span eight industries. It once symbolized the American conglomerate because of its presence in everything from publishing to industrial pumps. But in recent years ITT has sought to shrink its focus.


The company is selling ITT Commercial Finance to Deutsche Bank North America, the American subsidiary of Deutsche Bank AG.


ITT Commercial Finance loans money to distributors of products such as personal computers and motorcycles, a business known as asset-based lending. Such loans, co-signed by the manufacturers, help the distributors expand their inventories of these products and sell them more efficiently.


For Deutsche Bank, the acquisition will quadruple its presence in asset-based loans to about $5.1 billion, the company said.


Christiana Allaire, a spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank North America, said the cost of the purchase is $4 billion.


She declined to provide details, but at that level it would be one of the biggest acquisitions in a year when mergers and takeovers have already reached their most active level since the late 1980s.


Notable deals of 1994 include the $10 billion merger of Lockheed Corp. and Martin Marietta Corp.; American Home Products Corp.'s $9.7 billion takeover of American Cyanamid Corp.; Viacom Inc.'s $7.6 billion purchase of Blockbuster Entertainment Corp.; and Swiss drugmaker Roche Holding Ltd.'s $5.3 billion acquisition of pharmaceutical company Syntex Corp.


The ITT-Deutsche Bank deal also reflects the growing prominence of German investments and business expansion in the United States.